This is in response to several ongoing threads about cloning, past life regression, A.I., etc…
Suppose in a monocratic near future, a nation’s king dies without an heir. In life he was obsessed with immortality and technology in some order, and his last wish was “The kingdom will be ruled by regents for 30 years, after which time the crown shall be given to the person who can prove he or she is me!” (hey, it’s as good a way to choose a continuity of government as a sword in a stone.)
Thirty years later, the following people make claims on the estate:
1- a 20 something clone of the dead king (did I mention he converted to Raelianism on his deathbed?)- DNA testing proves he’s legit
2- a 20something woman who under past life regression answers all of the questions the king had set up to prove his reincarnation (ala “Rosabell” by Houdini)
3- a robot whose “brain” includes a complete download of the old king’s consciousness on silicon (Google “kurzweil” and “reinstantiation” for more info on what I’m talking about)
4- the lawyer priests who control the king’s cryogenically frozen body, which, while technically dead, may one day be restored to life and would then be the unquestioned heir.
Who should receive the crown? (Florida Dopers: please make sure you’re selecting the correct number when you vote.)
None of those claimants are “me,” i.e., the dead king, even though they may share some of his former attributes. The estate escheats to the state. The peasants rejoice.
Well, now, I’m not a fancy pants Dallas lawyer, who can throw around high-pollutin’ words like “escheat” with impunitiveness, but I’ll betcha its one or both of the Bush sisters, 5-4 decision, Supreme Court.
Actually, they don’t rejoice so much as they all break into camps and rattle their light sabers. The SCOTUS offers to settle the matter, but unfortunately they’ve been replaced by three clones, three reincarnations, and three androids of Judge Judy, so by the New Constitution when such a thing happens it’s decided by Oprah, but it’s 2429 and she’s finally on her honeymoon with Steadman, so it’s still anarchy.
It’d have to be #3…the robot with the dead king’s consciousness. Afterall…what is ‘me’? My body is just a vessle to locomote my brain around and my brain is just the repository for my holoistic self. While the robot does not possess the king’s body it possesses what really matters…the consciousness.
This is the funniest message I’ve read in my relatively short tenure on these boards. Hilarious.
For what it’s worth, my answer is #2. No matter how wacky, the king can probably set up whatever test he wants to determine who qualifies as him. If he decides the test is determining who knows what he called his teddy bear and which side he “hung toward,” and she passes it, then it’s Shirley MacClaine.
Wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong! Your body is as essential to your being as your “mind” is. Do you think that, with all other things being equal, you would have the same “mind” if you repeated life with a different body?
But now that the mind has developed to the point where you know “youself” and has all your memory intact, then #3 would be as much “you with a body” as “you with your arms and legs removed and fake robotic ones installed”.
I vote #3 as long as the robot “mind” has all of the king’s memory and personality. If the robot is really just a huge hard drive, all information and no thinking, I go with #2.
Definitely not 1. The clone wouldn’t be the king at all, just a much younger identical twin.
As to who should recieve it, so far I like fancy-pantses…erm, minty’s answer best so far. But as to who would receive it? Gotta be the lawyer priests. Goddamn power-crazed lawyer priests always screw up every damned thing.
On an aside note, I have a date for Saturday night. Sorry, I had to tell somebody. Hotcha!
The proper answer is, of course, #5 – the option nobody has thought of yet (including me) but which somebody will come up with in the intervening thirty years.
